The present invention relates generally to door structure for a vehicle door and more particularly to a common door inner panel that is employed with various styles of door outer panels in a vehicle door.
Vehicle exterior styling plays a significant part in people's decisions to purchase certain automotive vehicles. Thus, a particular vehicle manufacturer may have various styles of doors, to match different styles of vehicles, even for similar size doors on similar sized vehicles. Moreover, the exterior styling for a vehicle may change from time to time to increase the appeal of particular vehicles. With current vehicle door construction methodology, a change in the shape or dimensions of a door outer panel necessitates a change in the door inner panel to accommodate the door outer panel changes. Thus, the cost and time required for changing a door style is significant. Also, for vehicles with similar sized doors, but of different style, the door inner panel is different for each of these different styled doors. These different door inner panels may also require differences to accommodate mounting the door hardware.